Tag Archive | Books

This book — Intertwingled — is about designing information systems, and understanding the nature of information in systems. It’s about strange loops and invisible links at the crossroads of information architecture and systems thinking. It’s about the complex relationship between strategy and structure.

Now, in clear, conversational language, Davenport explains what big data means–and why everyone in business needs to know about it. “Big Data at Work” covers all the bases: what big data means from a technical, consumer, and management perspective; what its opportunities and costs are; where it can have real business impact; and which aspects of this hot topic have been oversold.

Buried in info? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom of a pile of paper, disks, books, e-books, and scattered thumb drives comes a cry of hope: Make way for the librarians—they can help!

Those who predicted the death of libraries forgot to consider that, in the automated maze of contemporary life, none of us—expert and hopelessly baffled alike—can get along without human help. And not just any help: we need librarians, the only ones who can save us from being buried by the digital age. This Book Is Overdue! is a romp through the ranks of information professionals—from the blunt and obscenely funny bloggers to the quiet, law-abiding librarians gagged by the FBI. These are the pragmatic idealists who fuse the tools of the digital age with their love for the written word and the enduring values of free speech, open access, and scout-badge-quality assistance to anyone in need.

An unexpectedly raucous and illuminating memoir set in a Southern California public library. For most of us, librarians are the quiet people behind the desk, who, apart from the occasional “shush,” vanish into the background. But in Quiet, Please, McSweeney’s contributor Scott Douglas puts the quirky caretakers of our literature front and center. With a keen eye for the absurd and a Kesey-esque cast of characters (witness the librarian who is sure Thomas Pynchon is Julia Roberts’s latest flame), Douglas takes us where few readers have gone before. Punctuated by his own highly subjective research into library history–from Andrew Carnegie’s Gilded Age to today’s Afghanistan–Douglas gives us a surprising (and sometimes hilarious) look at the lives which make up the social institution that is his library.